Top Hard

by Stephen Booth

  I lurked near the French windows, out of sight behind an overgrown shrub that the churchyard rota party really ought to get round to one day. I knew about these particular French windows - they're dead easy to get through. A quick tap in the right place and the catch falls open on the inside. I knew this because I'd done it before - only so that I could point out to the Rev how vulnerable he was to thieves, of course. I'd told him his second hand Victorian sideboard and his old Remington typewriter could be nicked at any moment, but he didn't take any notice. But at least that meant the catch would still drop open when I wanted it to.

  I heard the doorbell ring. A good long ring. The two lads in the sitting room stopped what they were doing and looked at each other for instructions. That's the drawback to sending out this sort of low-class heavy out on a job. They're programmed for one thing only, and if something goes wrong with the script they don't know who to start kicking first.

  Finally one of them walked through a door into the next room, which looked out onto the front of the house. He couldn't see who was at the door because of the nifty little brick porch that had been built round it. But he could see the Jag parked at the kerb, and he could see his mate was no longer sitting in the driver's seat. Therefore it must be his mate at the door. Two and two, you see? Boy, those maths can really get you into trouble.

  I watched number one come back into the sitting room and mouth something at number two, who smirked. Then he went out again, this time through the far door, into the hallway. He was going to answer the door to the driver, or so he thought. And maybe he was going to take the piss out of him for leaving his post to go to the loo or something.

  It went very quiet for a while. Nobody came back into the room. I could see number two fidgeting, doing everything but stick his head round the door into the hallway to see what was happening. He didn't seem to want to take his eyes off the Rev. This was obviously what he'd been programmed for, and he was sticking to it.

  I waited until he was good and edgy, then I stepped out from behind the shrub and gave the French window a smart rap with my fist. Spot on. It sprang open and I stepped into the room as the lad whirled round to face me, his hand going straight for his pocket. The trouble was, he had his back to the hallway now, and it wasn't me he had to worry about. The door swung open and a huge fist came round in a snappy arc. The lad may just have felt the breeze from it a split second before the fist connected with the side of his head. He crumpled like derelict pit buildings do when the demolition blokes set off their explosives. Thump, crumple and a cloud of dust. Gone.

  "You all right, Rev?"

  The Reverend Bowring looked a bit battered. His dog collar had slipped, and there was blood on his lip and trickling from his nose. He'd have a nice black eye tomorrow. On Sunday he'd be able to address his congregation on Gordon and His Face of Many Colours. But, ridiculously, he looked completely calm. Serene even. What's up with this bloke?

  "Livingstone? Hello. And David, isn't it? Thank you for dropping by."

  "It looked as though you needed help."

  "Very strange. I don't know what they wanted. I offered them the sideboard and the Remington, like you said, Livingstone, but they just laughed. Are they colleagues of yours?"

  "Hardly."

  "Oh. It's just that I got the impression from what they said that they might be in the same line of business. Rivals then, perhaps? Your name was certainly mentioned."

  "What a surprise."

  "I don't really know what to do now," he admitted, eyeing the body on the carpet. "Does one offer tea and an aspirin from the first aid tin? Or will they just go away? I'm not used to this sort of thing."

  "If anything like this happens again, you phone the police straight off, no messing."

  "One hardly likes to bother them."

  "Well, don't let the buggers through the door in the first place. Get proper locks fitted. You need security, Rev, I've told you before."

  I was getting a bit cross with him, probably because he was making me feel guilty. I don't know how he does this trick - I had my conscience taken out with my appendix years ago.

  "I have my own form of security, Livingstone," he said. "The security of my faith."

  "Oh yeah, right."

  "Worldly goods mean nothing in comparison to the riches that await us in the kingdom of heaven."

  "I'd best hire a van then, when I go."

  He looked again at the lad Dave had dropped. "Perhaps if I gave them some of my little brasses from the fireplace in the dining room it would make up for their unhappy experience."

  "Shit, Rev, you don't understand."

  But he smiled. "Nor do you, Livingstone, I fear."

  Dave was standing over the body, waiting for advice. Whatever we did, I knew Eddie Craig was going to be really pissed off with me now. Even Blyth wouldn't be far enough away. It might have to be Yorkshire.

  "Let's dump them in their car, Donc."

  Dave grunted and heaved the body over his shoulder. In the hallway I stepped over another crumpled heap so I could peer out of one of the little side windows into the street. Outside stood the empty Jag. But in front of it was now parked another one, same colour, also empty. My brain started digesting this fact for future reference. I decided it was definitely a bad sign. Then a lump hammer came smashing through the door.

  18

  When I opened my eyes there were two Eddie Craigs in front of me, swimming nauseatingly together. My head ached and, come to think of it, so did several other parts of my body. I was firmly fastened to a chair with my own belt. I could feel the VW buckle digging into my wrists.

  I couldn't place where I was just yet, but the room smelled mainly of piss. I took a guess that it probably wasn't Craig's nice house in Ravenshead. Maybe it was Lump Hammer Stan's place I'd been invited to today. He's a pisser all right, if ever there was one.

  I had a vague memory of a few minutes of violent chaos after Stan had smashed in the door of the vicarage. That's the difference, isn't it? Me, I got Dave to knock politely when we went in. But you don't get the civilities in some firms. Stan had two or three lads with him, and they'd barged me aside so that they could wade into Dave, who was already handicapped with a body just starting to come awake over his shoulder and another under his feet. I remember turning round to help him out, but I didn't get very far. There'd been a movement that I only caught out of the corner of my eye, and then something hit me hard on the side of the head. I'd gone down, seeing the floor through a sort of red haze, and waited for the boots to go in.

  When nothing happened for a second, I looked up. I could see Dave giving a couple of leather jackets a good thumping. He was enjoying himself far too much to notice what was happening to me. I'd tried to call his name, but my voice came out as a croak. And I didn't get a second chance as the first boot arrived, and my face hit the floor. They'd dragged me out head first after that.

  Now here was Craig himself, gradually starting to come into focus, looking fat and complacent. He's a short-arsed little bloke with a pot belly and a bald head, too many jowls and a lot of flashy rings on his fingers. He was sitting on a white plastic garden chair, with a glass of beer in front of him on a white plastic table. He looked like Willie the Gnome on his holidays.

  Like I said, I try to keep out of Craig's way. But he knows me, of course. My reputation precedes me.

  "Ah, McClure. Glad you could drop in. I hope you're comfortable."

  Comfortable I was not. As the room came more into focus, I saw that I was facing a big window behind Craig's head. The view out there wasn't encouraging. There was a great tangle of undergrowth, the top of a high fence, and an even higher screen of dark conifers. I guessed the nearest house was some distance away.

  Craig took a drink of his beer, shifting his pot belly, and looking at me with a little smile on his face that didn't make me feel any better. It was the sort of smile the rabbit sees on the face of the ferret.

  "Nice garden," I said. "Did you design it yoursel
f?"

  "It's a mess," he said. "It needs work. But, of course, I have people to do the heavy stuff."

  "Yeah?"

  "Cutting and burning, that sort of thing," he said. "Chopping. Digging."

  Lump Hammer Stan laughed. It was the worst noise I'd heard since the last Bjork single. Then I noticed the racks on the wall to my right. They were full of tools, beautifully polished and sharpened. There were spades, forks, a rake and a hoe, secateurs, shears, Stanley knives, pincers, a soldering iron, a baseball bat and a couple of electrodes attached to a car battery. Some funny gardening went on around here.

  "Was there something you wanted to talk about, Eddie?"

  Craig stopped smiling and looked a bit miffed. Since he got to be top man he prefers to be called Mr Craig. I knew that, and he knew I knew that. He also seemed to think I was lacking in the social niceties by getting straight to the point. He leaned forward, spraying some of the froth from his beer as the smile turned into a snarl.

  "I've sent some of my assistants to chat to you twice this week, but you wouldn't co-operate. I don't like that, McClure. I don't like that at all."

  Twice? Up Top Forest the other day, yes, when Moxon had miraculously appeared. But when else? Well, there was the day before, when we wasted all those large fries.

  "Hell, I didn't know those plonkers at McDonald's were your lads, Eddie. I hadn't realised that you employed amateurs these days."

  There were stirrings behind me, and heavy breathing, like I'd accidentally wandered into a cave where grisly bears were hibernating and they'd taken offence. I was feeling a bit hurt that Craig had only sent the second string out for me that first time, when even Mick Kelk had earned the attention of Lump Hammer straight off. This sort of thing is important to your prestige.

  "Sorry about that, Eddie. But now we've met up, what was this chat about?"

  Craig poured himself another drink, slowly, as if giving himself time to calm down. He still didn't offer me one. No manners, this lot.

  "How's business at the moment, McClure? Going well? Any problems?"

  I hesitated at that. Craig probably knew all about my business. He'd never interfered so far, but there was no point in lying to him.

  "Things have gone a bit quiet at the moment," I said. "The plods are a bit keen too."

  "A bit of a downturn, eh? A rough patch? And of course you lost the services of young Thompson for a while, didn't you?"

  "Do you know something about that?"

  He waved his glass. "Only what I hear. It seems somebody's causing a bit of trouble. A few spanners in the works here and there. Being a nuisance, you might say."

  I knew he couldn't really be worried about my problems. So did this mean Craig's business was being affected too? If so, it put a whole different slant on things. Apart from anything else, if whoever had been responsible was prepared to upset Craig as well as me, they maybe weren't safe to mess with.

  "I wondered whether you might have any suspicions about the source of your problems," said Craig.

  "None at all," I said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Certain."

  Craig put his glass down, almost sadly. "You see, McClure," he said, "when I observe you apparently doing nothing at all about the downturn in your business, and when I see that one of your boys has been taken in by the police, I start to wonder."

  "Wonder what?"

  "Whether I need to look any further for the spanner in the works. Whether your so-called problems aren't just a smokescreen. I'm thinking Stones McClure is getting a bit greedy. Moving in on my territory."

  He was snarling again now, and his hand was shaking so much the beer was slopping over the edge of his glass onto the plastic table. I reckon he must have a blood pressure problem.

  "I'd be very disappointed if that was the case. Very disappointed."

  Craig made disappointment sound fatal. Maybe it was time to try a bit of appeasement.

  "I'm not interested in that sort of game, Eddie. I'll stick to my own business, thanks very much. It smells better."

  He didn't like that either. Maybe I need a bit more practice on my appeasement skills. Craig ended up with his finger poked almost in my face, grimacing at me like a frustrated gargoyle.

  "So why was your Thompson boy taken in by the Serious Crime Squad? What's their interest in him?"

  "I don't know."

  Eddie was well informed in these areas. No doubt half the squad were on his payroll anyway. He must have read the expression on my face correctly, because he leaned back and took another drink. Lump Hammer Stan and the other two lads relaxed a fraction. I was glad about that - I didn't like to see them so tense, it might give them indigestion.

  "A driver, isn't he? Thompson?" said Craig.

  "Yeah, among other things."

  "Has he been moonlighting? Working for someone else?"

  "I don't think so."

  "You see, McClure, I know you were asking questions of poor old Mick Kelk the other night. He was quite eager to tell us about it." Craig paused deliberately, smiled that ferret smile again. "Poor old Mick."

  "Yeah, poor old Mick."

  I felt a bit sick in my stomach. As soon as I got away from here I'd have to find out what happened to Kelk. Poor old Mick.

  "Kelk's been driving for somebody," I told him.

  "I know. That was something else he told me. Now I want to hear how you're involved."

  "Look, I told you - I'm not involved at all."

  The dried blood on my head was itching, and I instinctively tried to raise my hand to scratch it, forgetting the belt. Stan grabbed me and thumped me back upright. He did it a bit harder than necessary, I thought.

  "It's got to stop, McClure," said Craig in his Mister Nasty voice.

  Did he mean all this senseless violence? If so, I was right with him.

  "You're right. So let me go and we'll forget all about it, eh? I'll shake hands with Stan, and you can pay for a new door for the vicarage. Then we'll all sleep happily in our beds."

  "Don't be clever. I did try to warn you, in a friendly way. But it doesn't work, does it? We might have had a peaceful arrangement of interests once, but that's over now. A shame you've gone and spoiled it."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Eddie. All I want to do is get on with my business. Why do people keep interfering?"

  Craig didn't take much notice. He shook his head, as if he didn't believe me. Did he know me that well?

  "Did you think your friends in the police would help you?"

  "Friends?"

  "Maybe they decided to use you to try and close me down. You and the police would like that, wouldn't you?"

  "You've got it all wrong, Eddie."

  Even to me my voice sounded weary. I saw Craig hesitate for the first time. He isn't stupid. He's got to have good judgement or he wouldn't have survived in this business so long.

  "There's been an awful lot of talk about you, McClure."

  "Don't I know it. And I suppose you think there's no smoke without fire? I suppose you've added two and two together somewhere along the way?"

  A saw that movement out of the corner of my eye again. It was Lump Hammer Stan taking a step towards me. He thought the big words were swearing. I flinched a bit, trying to hide all the bits that already hurt. But Craig just lifted a hand to hold him back, and Stan went back to lurking just outside my field of vision.

  "You've been making a nuisance of yourself. Asking a lot of questions. Dealing in information. That's a long way from your car boot stalls."

  "The information I wanted was about who's been fouling up my business. I've been suffering here, Eddie. Like, you, I guess."

  "Not like me, I don't think."

  Craig lit a cigarette. I was glad he didn't offer me one. I gave up smoking a long time ago. Besides, my mouth hurt.

  "There's always been a lot of this sort of thing going on. Petty crime - your sort of crime, McClure. It never really occurred to me before that it was organised on
any scale. Now it seems as though it is."

  "Not by me. I've hardly got started."

  "I think you've stirred somebody up. They've been bringing in a lot of cash, on the quiet. But now they're upset, and they're lashing out. At you. And even at me. It won't do."

  "I don't know anything about them."

  Craig nodded. I instantly tensed, thinking maybe it was a signal for Stan to start doing a bit of gardening with the baseball bat. But nothing happened. Craig nodded again. I realised he was trying to tell me that he actually believed me.

  "But you'd like to know this person is, wouldn't you, McClure?"

  Craig looked at the end of his cigarette for a while. I just hoped he was planning on smoking it and not using it for anything else.

  "This person - he's the one who's been fouling up my deliveries?" I said.

  "They call him Perella," said Craig, with a smug look. He was relaxed now. He thought he was completely in charge, that he knew everything and I knew nothing. He thought he had control over me. His calmness was more worrying than his high blood pressure.

  "You knew who it was all along? But why - "

  "It was him or you. Maybe both of you together, who knows? But you were the most convenient to get hold of."

  "That'll teach me to be accessible to my public."

  "Well, relatively convenient," said Craig, with a glance towards Stan. For the first time, it occurred to me that I wasn't the only one in Craig's bad books at the moment. You can't over-rate fellow feeling too highly, even when you have to call somebody like Lump Hammer Stan a chum.

  "Perella, now, I can't find him at all," said Craig. "No one knows where he lives or where he comes from, or where he hangs out. So obviously I had to start with you. We do have some interests in common, don't we?"

  I didn't like the way he said this. I don't like to think I have too much in common with the likes of Eddie Craig. So I kept mum and admired the garden. I'd just noticed that it wasn't all wild undergrowth out there after all. Somebody had recently been doing quite a lot of deep digging in a bed just under the window.